Apple offers free recycling of its products worldwide

Apple is offering to recycle its products for free worldwide, and has included even third-party products like mobile phones and PCs in the program
in some countries.

The company said on its redesigned environmental responsibility page that Apple retail stores will take back Apple products for “free, responsible
recycling.”

A spokesman for Apple confirmed Monday that the program would be available worldwide.

The announcement ahead of Earth Day on Tuesday offers store gift cards, if the old product is found to be reusable, for use against new purchases at
Apple online and physical stores. If the product cannot be reused, Apple will recycle it at no cost to the user.

There are variations by country, but at the bare minimum every Apple retail store will take back Apple products for free and responsible
recycling

How nice of apple to take the trash and recycle it for the mother earth, not only their trash but they also take other brands pc and displays.

Under the new program, the company is offering, depending on the country, to also recycle Apple batteries besides mobile phones and even computers
and displays from other vendors at no cost to the users.

Or could it be that apple wants to free themselves on the rare metal domain of china by recycling the components keeping the supply in the house?

Rare earth metals are absolutely critical to modern life. Fiber optic communications require erbium. Neodymium is a critical component in modern
permanent magnets. Without a steady supply of rare earth metals, we would find ourselves in some difficulty, and things may get even more critical in
the future—quantum memory may lie in the hands of praseodymium.

Despite this need for rare earth metals, pretty much the entire supply comes from one country: China. In 2010, politicians finally noticed this, as
China started restricting its export. In response, a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been investigating our
ability to recycle rare earth metals.

Recycling of these metals is not easy as they are around 1% or less of the mass of the electronics making it not easy to recover them.

Rare such as yttrium, neodymium, niobium, and dysprosium are required for powerful magnets. These small but extremely strong magnets are required
for common appliances including refrigerators, cell phones, and engines of all types. However, because they are only present in trace amounts (less
than 1%) in these products, it is extremely difficult to recycle these appliances with the intention of recovering REEs

But it can be done and at the moment China have a monopoly on the mining of these minerals, its not a consideration of if china will raise more the
price, its about when they are going to stop exporting them. I don't think apple is a company that do things out of good will or for the nature, they
are starting to cover their backs for the eventual time when China starts to exert their control over the supply, it may take a loss now by recycling
but in the end it may pay off.

What you think fellow members, Apple conspiracy to survive Chinese yoke or good nature of the company to help the world?

Don't a lot of other people/recycling services already offer free recycling for phones and other electronics? I've never had a problem recycling my
phones in the past (between my whole family, we've have recycled at least three or four phones in the past several years).

I know here in the U.S., "Staples" and "Best Buy" stores offer free recycling of cell phones and electronics.

Just hearing the word "recycle" and not following through is so stereotypically Western Civ. Like writing checks to UNICEF and wiping your hands as
done and ignoring the warlords who intercept the deliveries and the UN Peacekeepers who have a habit of running child sex rings or driving around in a
Prius completely oblivious to the toxic as hell battery under the hood that isnt designed to last a decade.

My apple global footprint is very low because I refuse to buy a device that you cannot replace the battery on that costs $300-$700 each and what
really makes it worse is if you hook these things up to a wifi and watch what goes on using firewall logs then you will see they call home even more
than microsoft and it's spyware.

Having the option to remove a battery to stop being recorded is a must have these days, much like having a lock on your front door.

My apple global footprint is very low because I refuse to buy a device that you cannot replace the battery on that costs $300-$700 each and what
really makes it worse is if you hook these things up to a wifi and watch what goes on using firewall logs then you will see they call home even more
than microsoft and it's spyware.

Having the option to remove a battery to stop being recorded is a must have these days, much like having a lock on your front door.

Me personally since I 1st started buying pcs back before baby internet.. I have not gave anything away that would have personal info on it.. or
anything I added in general..
That is a rule of thumb for me.. I like my 4th and 9th amendment a lot.... really a lot..

I sell or get rid of everything except what holds the info on item.. HD's flash drives or whatever in phones.. If I were to give a smartphone away I
would destroy the internal storage for it.. But I dont give them away so I dont have to worry about it..

People who do this are stupid.. cause alot of people can easily access all the info you had on that drive.. but to each their own I
suppose.

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